We received this email this week. Thought we’d pass it along…

Aaron, here are some pictures from our recent Thanksgiving meal we put on for our Hispanic neighbors. We had 21 guests (children and parents) and no way to
communicate with them. Eli, one of our home group members, was going to be our translator, but had to go home due to a death in his family.

The day of our dinner, God put Manuel in the life of another group member. Manuel is a Hispanic pastor from Brazil who just opened a church in Fayetteville that day. He and his family accepted our invitation and opened our dinner with a blessing in Spanish and English. Then after the meal, he witnessed to the Hispanic parents while we worked with the kids making a festive dessert. His witness was a powerful story of how God worked miracles in his life allowing him to adopt several children from around South America. It truly was a Thanksgiving Meal and a time of thanks for all that God provides throughout the year!!!

Peace, Andy Reeder
Home Group Leader
Hope in Sanford

Did you know there is something more important than getting your kids to simply go to church on Sunday mornings? By helping them find opportunities to serve others, you’ll encourage them to be the church instead of just going to church.

It is too easy for us to find a false sense of security in the notion that our children are growing because they attend something…Don’t underestimate what serving inside the church, in your community, and even globally can do to the heart of your son or daughter. We even know some parents and leaders who strive to make sure their teenagers are involved in at least one overseas mission effort before they graduate. They understand how the experience of personal ministry can affect someone’s sense of purpose. It is not enough to tell children they are significant. Most of our children will never really believe they are significant until we give them something significant to do.

• Reggie Joiner and Carey Nieuwhof, “Parenting Beyond Your Capacity”, pg 73-75.

Simple things you can do on your own:

- Take a stroll around the neighborhood with your children. You can’t meet the needs of your neighbors if you don’t know your neighbors. And nothing has the ability to start a conversation with a complete stranger the way children do. Children have a way of disarming people’s natural suspicions. I (Chase) have done this a few times and every time I’ve done it with the intention of meeting others, I have.

- You can be the person in your neighborhood that has all the kids around come and play in your backyard one day. Most of the parents around you are waiting for someone to do just this. It will create a since of community in your neighborhood and give you the incredible opportunity to hear the needs of those that live around you.

- The seasons are changing. Odds are there are a few families in your area that would love some help raking leaves, winterizing their homes, etc. The holidays are also coming. There’s nothing easier than to invite someone who’s recently moved to town, a widow, or a family miles away from their extended family to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas with you.

- There are many Home Groups that love taking their kids to local nursing homes. The kids in Andy Reeder’s Group have loved hand making Christmas cards for all the elderly and then passing them out before Christmas.

Besides these, many of Hope’s Partner Ministries welcome kids:

Bumper crop- if you have a truck and a free weekend, this is a great opportunity.

• Once the food has been collected and loaded up, the kids can simply come along for the ride and be there as you hand off needed food and supplies to families in need.
  • The children get to see how blessed they are, and can begin to develop a heart for the down and out.
  • It’s easy and it’s simply
  • Contact Richard Hopkins  atthehop@nc.rr.com

Haven House- Haven House Services is a non-profit agency that helps struggling young people and their families with a wide range of interrelated programs to address challenges such as homelessness, gang activity, juvenile delinquency, substance abuse and much more. There are many volunteer opportunities available:

• Bring lunch or baked goods on Saturdays for 30 youth doing Community Service
• Adopt a holiday or create a special night for youth
• Decorate and furnish bedrooms for youth in crisis shelter
• Assist with Landscaping/Gardening needs
• Contact Eddi Boucher-   eddi_boucher@yahoo.com

Newbern House

• On the second and third Saturday’s of each month, volunteers from Hope and the community serve lunch at the Newbern House for its residents as well as children from low income housing in the area and people who live on the streets. In all, we feed around 160 people. We need 10-12 volunteers for each meal. We do require that each person who volunteers bring at least one main dish to feed 20.
• Contact Mandy Withrow-  apwithrow@gmail.com

Rex Rehab and Nursing Care Center

-The Rex Rehab and Nursing Care Center of Raleigh is located on the campus of Rex Hospital.  It offers individualized treatment and care to their residents who are in the twilight years of life.

• The Hope Community Church Homeschool group visits the residents of the Nursing Care Facility on the first Friday of every month at 10:30am. This is a wonderful outreach for families with children of all ages, as well as adults/couples of all ages.

• Below are just a few of the many ways we can show God’s love to the elderly:
• Read to and with them
• Engage them in conversation
• Play games
• Sing-a-longs
• Crafts
• Plant flowers/garden
• Holiday Parties
• Christmas caroling
• Private in-room visits to patients who are bed ridden
• Talk, read or pray with them
• “Stand in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God.  I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:31-33

• Contact Erin Monasterio erin21400@aol.com

Ship of Zion

• -Ship of Zion proclaims the love of Christ to inner city residents by providing them with food, clothing and care and ministering to their spiritual needs without distinction for denomination, race or place in life. Ship of Zion serves a diverse population ranging from the economically disadvantaged and physically disabled to drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes and gang members.
• On the second Saturday of each month, Hope sends volunteers to partner with Ship of Zion’s “Community Day” outreach. Volunteers have the opportunity to pray with visitors from the community, serve them lunch, distribute groceries and help with medical screening.
• -Contact Aleece Spalding   ahspalding@earthlink.net

Sir Walter Apartments

• This apartment complex for low income elderly citizens is housed in the former Hotel Sir Walter on Fayetteville St. in downtown Raleigh. Over 140 residents live in this historic building which is managed by a small staff of just five people. Because of this, the staff are very dependent upon volunteers to help them with day-to-day operations as well as participation with the residents in various activities and meals.
• (Best for elementary to older kids)
• You can also help in supervising Bingo Night or Birthday Parties.
• Contact Kristen Reiss      kristenreiss@yahoo.com

We hope you had a great time with your group this week and just wanted to reach out and give some good information about the new home group guides program.  Please take a few minutes and read over this info.  Thanks!

What is a home group guide?

Starting this fall, Hope will be pairing home group leaders in home group clusters.  We will be asking you to meet with your cluster once every other month for coffee, lunch, or dinner.  These meetings aren’t meant to be long, just a way to talk about the good/bad things going on in your group, share wins, encourage each other, and find creative ways to serve our community together.

Hope is looking for one leader in each cluster to be a guide.  The home group guide will establish a meeting time that works for everybody, and help facilitate discussion about life in your home groups and the impact 40-50 people (5 home groups) can have in our community.  The key word is facilitate. We will be encouraging guides to keep their job simple and relational.  Our resources will include: providing service ideas, taking “wins” from your cluster and communicating those to the church, routing questions and ideas to church leadership, and helping resolve small group related issues.

How will groups be formed?

We’ll be grouping all home group leaders into clusters based on your geographical location and will try to accommodate any personal preferences you may have.  We want you to be with people that have the same passions, or share the same community interests you may already have.  I will send out an email specifically asking for any preferences in an upcoming email.

What are you asking of me?

We would like for you to consider becoming a home group guide. We already have about 13 individuals and just need 5-10 more to make sure that every group has a guide. This leadership role will add just minutes to your month because we are already putting all leaders into guide groups. There is minimal training and time commitment, but a maximum benefit to the people in all home groups and our community.  We need these spots to be filled by September 30^th so all home groups can benefit from this program

If you’d like more information, or have questions, please contact me Aaron Lee at aaronl@gethope.net or 919.532.0620

Didn’t get to attend our kickoff?  You’re probably puzzled right now…

But in just three weeks home groups at Hope will be trying to show our community in a very simple way that we care about them.  If you’ve ever had to use a laundromat, it probably wasn’t by choice.  If you had the money, you’d just buy a washing machine and dryer and do the laundry in your own home or rent a bigger apartment.  For many people, that doesn’t seem to be possible.  This is a practical and simple way to show God’s love to people in our community.

October 15th – 9am – Raleigh Campus

We’re asking all home groups to come as a group, or at least send a few members.  We will be meeting for a few minutes to pray, give some instructions, business cards, and the location of a laundromat to “take over”.  Your group has three weeks  left to gather $200 to pay for the laundry of people attending your laundromat.  This is based on the number of approximately $75 per/hour to pay for laundry.  If you can’t gather that much among the members of your group, just bring what you can.  All groups should be showing up to their location by 9:30, and done by 11 or 12 based on how much money you bring.

What we need from you

Please let us know by September 30th if your group will be attending the event.  We would love to see every group out there in our community.  So far, we have identified 27 laundromats in our community and would love to meet the needs of all of them on that day.  This is a way for the church to be seen in action.  It’s not for the glory of Hope nor will it be a promotion for Hope, but for God’s church in general.  We will hand out cards if they really want a place to check out.

Thanks again for your hearts and everything you do

-Aaron Lee

Check out the two videos below. If you didn’t attend the big Kickoff on Sept 10th, this will give you a good idea of where we’re headed. Please comment to the questions below.

Do you agree or disagree with Matt Carter? In your experience, does mission really help create community in a group? Do you have any stories that clearly prove this point.

Hello to all of our wonderful Home Group Leaders. As alluded to in a previous email, our Biannual Semester Kick-Off will be held Saturday, September 10th, from 9am to 11am at the Raleigh Campus. All Home Group Leaders are required (highly encouraged) to attend this event. It will be an awesome time of fellowship, sharing wins and victories, and becoming better equipped as Home Group Leaders.

All leaders will be receiving a phone call from either myself, Brigid Eshbaugh, or Aaron Lee by the end of this week.

In a few conversations I’ve noticed a little confusion pertaining to this event. Hopefully the following will help clear up any questions you may have.

• The Semester System, which we instituted last year, is simply an efficient way for the church leadership to organize, communicate to, and promote our Home Groups Ministry. It offers those wishing to get involved in a group the opportunity to hear about it and sign up. It also offers those who wish to either take a break from the ministry or simply switch groups a guilt free manner in which to do so. Home Groups do not have to quit meeting after the semesters are ended, nor do they have to start a new study when one begins. As a Leader you can meet every week for years if you want. If you desire a few new people to get in the group, then simply open up your group on group finder, and interested people will be able to find your group and sign up at the beginning of each semester.
• The Semester Kick-Off will not drastically change anything in the world of Home Groups. We will not be encouraging you to start a new study.If you’re in the process of doing ID, awesome. Continue. It is simply a great time to get together, get motivated, and walk out excited to serve in the coming months. You’ll have the awesome opportunity to download with other group leaders about struggles, victories, good and bad studies they’ve done, etc. It will greatly enhance your ability to lead a group or, if you’re already a rock-star leader, it will give you the opportunity to share some wisdom with all of us.

I hope this helps clear up some confusion. If you haven’t already, please complete the LifeGroup Leader Renewal form, located here:  http://lifegroups.gethope.net/lifegroup-leader-renewal-form/

If you don’t fill it out, then you won’t exist…not really, but this is the basis of all of our communication in the future.

Thanks so much. You guys / gals ROCK!!!  Look forward to seeing you soon.

If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to email me. God Bless

Chase Gardner

Pastor of Adult Learning

chaseg@gethope.net

This is a clip we shot as Local Hope took one of the tornado victims to “The Green Chair Project”. They furnished their entire new apartment. What you don’t learn about in the video is that there are ten more families just like this one, and they have all been adopted by a home group who has committed to stick with them for 6 months to help them through the restoration process. It’s an honor to be a part of something like this. Keep up the awesome work Home Groups.

Local Hope and “The Green Chair Project from Chase Gardner on Vimeo.

I’ve been reading George MacDonald a lot lately. If you know me, or have ever heard me teach or speak, then you know that I am the definition of “grace-driven” and “anti-legalism”. A few years ago I would have considered any teaching purely on “obedience” as small minded and unhealthy. Well, my views have matured a bit over the past few months. I now can honestly say that I actually rejoice in obedience and find myself tying thoughts on the subject to the gospel of grace. I’m finding, through my reading and experience, that the two or inseparable. We obey God, not in order to earn his acceptance, but in order to personally experience more of the love and acceptance we already have through Jesus. With that said, check out the list of MacDonald quotes I’ve compiled. I guarantee many of them will be useful in driving home the point of many of your Home Group lessons. You will hear many of them again as I seek to lead our Home Group Ministry in the direction of active obedience to Jesus in caring for the poor and hopeless in our communities- not to boast in the ministry I’ve built or to teach us to earn God’s acceptance, but to hopefully lead us into a deeper and more profound walk with Jesus. Enjoy…

And comment please…What do you think the balance of Grace/Obedience should be? Am I treading on the slope of legalism? What has been you’re past experiences?

FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST is to learn his ways by going and doing them, not trying to understand them first, or doing anything else whatever with them first than obeying them.

THE FAITH REQUIRED OF US is faith in a person, and not in the truest of statements concerning anything, even concerning him.

PRACTICALITY is the code of true faith: can something be done? If so, where is to be found the first opportunity to do it?

IF ANYONE is desirous of spreading the truth, let him apply himself to the doing of it. Not obeying the truth, he is doubly a liar who pretends to preach it.

FAITH, in its simplest, truest, mightiest form, is-to do God’s will in the one thing revealing itself at the moment as duty. The faith that works miracles is an inferior faith to this-and not what the old theologians call a saving faith.

OBSERVE THE OBEDIENCE of Jesus to the Father. He did not give the commands, he obeyed them.

FRIENDS, cast your idol into the furnace. Melt your mammon down, coin him up, make God’s money of him, and send him out to do God’s work. Make of him cups to carry the gift of God, the water of life, through the world.

WHOEVER,  in the commonest duties that fall to him, does as the Father would have him do, bears his yoke along with Jesus; and the Father takes his help for the redemption of the world.

THE SERVICE the Lord requires is not done in any church. He will not say to you, “You never went to church: depart from me, I do not know you.” But he will say, “Inasmuch as you never helped one of my Father’s children, you have done nothing for me.”

WE CAN LIVE in no way but that in which Jesus lived. That way is to give up our life. This is the one supreme action of life possible to us.

IT WAS NOT for our understanding, but our will, that Christ came.

HE WHO DOES that which he sees, shall understand. He who is set upon understanding rather than doing, shall go on stumbling and mistaking and speaking foolishness.

IN CHOOSING AND OBEYING the truth, a man becomes the true son of the Father of lights.

THOSE WHO LIVE as Jesus lived-by obedience to the Father- have a share in their own making.

OUR BUSINESS is not to think correctly, but to live truly. Then first will there be a possibility of our thinking correctly.

FAITH IS OBEDIENCE; theory, I know not what.

JESUS CHRIST has a right to our absolute obedience.

TO PUT OFF OBEYING him until we find a credible theory concerning him is to set aside the medicine we know it our duty to drink for the study of the various schools of therapy.

THE TRUE DISCIPLE shall always know what he ought to do, though not necessarily what another ought to do.

NO TEACHER should strive to make others think as he thinks, but to lead them to the living Truth, to the Master himself,of whom alone they can learn anything, who will make them in themselves know what is true by the very seeing of it.

TO HIM WHO OBEYS, and thus opens the doors of his heart to receive the eternal gift, God gives the Spirit of his Son, the Spirit of himself.